


"Science Experiment"

by lookimadeahat



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Mayor and Chief of Staff, Mild Gore, Murder, Season 3, extremely mild gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookimadeahat/pseuds/lookimadeahat
Summary: Ed's "science experiment" had ruined the new carpet.





	"Science Experiment"

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of a dialogue prompt I found online.

Oswald leaned back on the door after closing it. It had been a long day, and he was just glad to be home. After a moment, he grabbed his cane and started walking again. He was headed towards the dining room, where he planned to grab a bottle of liquor and drink away the aching pain in his leg and the stress of the day, when he noticed something in the living room. He started to walk towards it but was quickly cut off (and thoroughly startled) by Ed practically jumping out of the room and in front of him, attempting, but failing to fully, close the door behind him.

“Oswald! You’re back!” his Chief of Staff exclaimed, a nervous jitter infiltrating his words.

“Is that a dead body?” Oswald asked with an exasperated sigh; he really was not in the mood for this tonight.

“...Maybe,” Ed replied, refusing to meet Oswald’s eyes.

“It is. I can see it on the floor behind you.”

Ed swivelled around, discovering that he had failed to latch the door upon closing it, whereupon it seemed to have promptly swung back open again. “I promise I’ll clean it up before dinner!” he assured the crime lord with the most innocent, pleading, and gleeful smile Oswald had ever seen.

“Fine. Just–Just– _Why?_ Why is there a dead body in my living room?” he groaned.

“Because I killed him…” Ed admitted, studying the floor like a third-grader who had gotten scolded for stealing a classmate’s crayon.

“What did he do to you?” Oswald asked with a shake of his head, trying to fight off the fond smile that was threatening to spread across his face.

“Who?...Oh, him? Nothing,” Ed answered, casually.

“Then why did you _kill_ him?!” the Penguin spat.

“For science!”

“Please tell me I misheard you.”

“What? It was just a science experiment and–”

“There is an innocent person dead in my living room because you wanted to conduct a _science experiment?!_ ” Oswald fumed.

“I never said he was innocent; I said he didn’t do anything to _me._ Come on, Oswald, relax! It’s not like you’ve never seen a dead body before,” Ed added with a playful poke to Oswald’s side, “Besides, since when have you cared about someone getting killed in your house?”

“Since that somebody was bleeding all over my new carpet!” the mayor shrieked.

“...Oh. This is new?” he asked with a nervous shift.

“Yes! I thought you couldn’t forget anything, _Ed._ You helped me pick out this carpet last week!” Penguin snapped as he pushed past the taller man to better observe the full extent of the damage. The body was still in tact–thank God Ed hadn’t decided he needed to dismember it on the carpet, though, Oswald supposed, it wouldn’t matter anyway at this point, considering the nearly two foot wide pool of blood soaking through it. “Dear God, Ed! Why the _Hell_ did you have to do this in here?!”

Ed stayed silent, looking at the floor.

“Well?” Oswald pressed, in a tone he usually reserved for children and morons.

“Because…” Ed mumbled.

“You’re going to need to elaborate, Eddie, darling,” he chirped with a sardonic cheerfulness.

Ed blushed at the term of endearment. He knew Oswald was being sarcastic, but it still made him feel nice to be called ‘darling’; no one else had ever used a real pet name with him before. So, he acquiesced, “Because he really _pissed me off._ ” 

The sentence had started off softly but ended in an aggressive growl, which surprised the mayor, almost as much as the fact that Edward used the word ‘piss.’ It certainly wasn’t a horrendous swear, or–he would argue–even a swear at all, but Ed always maintained that it was whenever he chastised the mayor for his ‘not-so-mayoral’ mouth. “So he _did_ do something to you.”

“No,” Ed sighed, “He just–he was being combative, disagreeable. He was organizing rallies of thugs who wanted to oppose you. He thought that if protests weren’t getting through, maybe burning down a warehouse or two would. And then he had the audacity to imply that you had used a more–unsavory–kind of bribery to win the office of mayor. It pissed me off and I killed him. End of story. The asshole just got what was coming to him.” He looked down at the body with disdain and kicked it, as if to emphasize that he felt like killing him once wasn’t quite enough.

“I...appreciate that, Ed,” Oswald responded, a genuine, warm smile growing. He felt truly touched that Ed had been so protective of him, and that he was so infuriated as to sacrifice his clean-as-soap mouth for the sake of emphasizing how much he loathed any amount of disrespect shown towards his friend. Perhaps Ed cared about him more than he realized. The man had blushed when Oswald called him darling earlier. He felt hopeful for the possibility of a relationship in the future. “What was the experiment you wanted to conduct?”

“I was going to carve the tattoos off of his body to see if–”

Oswald almost vomited. He was not a squeamish man by any means, but he had no interest in allowing Ed to carve up a rotting corpse to collect skin art in his home. “Nope. Stop!”

“...Sorry,” Nygma replied, looking at the floor.

“It’s fine, Ed. I forgive you...for the details, for the dead guy on my new carpet. I’ll get a new one. But since the rug is already ruined, why don’t we get a friend down to a more manageable size for transport, you know, for old time’s sake.” He smirked as he remember them dismembering Galavan’s lacky, Mr. Leonard, together when he been injured. That had been one Hell of a night. Oswald beamed at the memory. He wanted to find a way to rekindle that feeling in himself; maybe it would give him the courage to talk to Ed about his feelings. Yes, this seemed like a good idea. He added with a smug grin, “Call it a science experiment. See if we get the same results as last time?”


End file.
